The current state of using a television set as a display for personal computers generally involves the use of a digital encoder card in combination with a computer VGA adapter card. The digital encoder card is used to convert the red, green and blue (RGB) signals from a computer VGA adapter card into a composite video signal having either a PAL or NTSC format for driving a television set. Such arrangements may require some manual configuration between the computer VGA adapter card and the digital encoder card to provide a composite video signal having acceptable display qualities relative to the hardware requirements and specifications of the television set.
Although the computer VGA adapter card may have an associated device driver for controlling hardware-related operations within the VGA display adapter, there is no software control of the digital encoder card that supplies the PAL or NTSC format composite video signals to the television set. Hence, the personal computer is unaware of the presence of the television set, let alone any performance or technical specifications of the television. Hence, all hardware functions associated with the television need to be performed manually by a user.